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Showing posts from 2012

A different sort of Paralympic medals table

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During my stint as a Paralympic Gamesmaker (more on that soon, I promise) I learned that Fiji had only sent one athlete to the games. This apparently random bit of information stuck in my mind (mainly because I do know someone from Fiji!) but a few days into the games I learned that this athlete – a one-legged high-jumper – had achieved a gold medal.  Amazing. In  my commercial mind, this means that Fiji achieved a 100% success rate in terms of ROI: they invested in one athlete at the Games and came back with one gold. Job done. This led me to wonder if other countries had done the same. I mean, it was only by chance that I knew that Fiji had one athlete AND that this guy had won gold. Let’s face it: the TV coverage was very GB-centric so stuff like this just seems to have gone by unnoticed.  So I decided to do a bit of research into the datasets I needed and worked on some simple analysis with these numbers. I defined 'success' as the ratio between number of athlete

Gamesmaker module 5 - which team will I be supporting?

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At last – at long last the day was here, when I would find out what Delegation I would be working with, as well as some of the other Games Makers in my team. This was the session I had been waiting for practically since I signed up . As the content was nation-specific, we didn’t have a choice of dates for this module as we had had for previous, which meant traipsing across London on a Thursday afternoon, having to take an afternoon off work and resulting in a very, very long day. But who cares, we would finally be told what team we would be rooting for, so off I went with a spring in my step. The one good thing about doing the journey mid-week was that public transport is much more reliable and dependable then. I got to the venue with very good time and was able to chat with a few Games Makers prior to the start of the event. We were all just as excited as each other about the session. When we arrived we knew that the dates were based on Continent so after a few conversatio

Gamesmaker training Module 4 - the devil is in the detail

It was a cold April morning and I was once again on my way to London for Gamesmaker training . And for the first time ever, I was early! So this time I could relax with my coffee and chat to my fellow colleagues about what they thought of the experience so far. It was overwhelmingly positive but we also were starting to get a bit bored about all the sitting in a room and listening. After the mandatory icebreaker session (something about picking a piece of sports equipment and relating it to ourselves) we moved right into the training session. This module would cover a lot of the more detailed processes and procedures we might be involved with such as ticketing, accreditation, rate card, etc.  There was a lot to cover on the day and perhaps we did it all too quickly or I wasn’t in the greatest of moods but this was my least favorite session to date. I found it incredibly tedious, with far too much detail that felt like it wasn’t relevant but which led to far too many questions a

Gamesmaker training Module 3 - it's all about the Athletes' Village

Before long I had another training session, this time in a different venue but still in Hackney. To attend this one I had to get on a train, a tube and then another train! Fortunately the walk after the station was not a long one and for once I made it to a training session just in time. This Module 3 was all about the Athletes' Village: what is in it, what is around it, and basically everything we needed to know about the venue to help us in our role. We started with a fun icebreaker in which we all shared a greeting in another language that we could speak and fairly soon it was obvious that there were a huge number of languages spoken in the room! The actual training session then started and it was all very interesting: we saw maps, photographs, layouts and learned lots of useful and interesting facts about the Athletes’ Village. I knew this was a large operation but just thinking about the amount of meals served – and not just regular meals but with particular conside

Gamesmaker training Module 2 - the first real insight into the role

A week after my gamesmaker orientation event in Wembley I had to be back in Hackney for Module 2 in my role-specific training. This time I had to be there so early that I actually woke up at 6am on a Sunday morning to be able to get there on time… but yet again public transport let me down. A combination of points and signals failure meant that once more I had to race through the streets of Hackney to get to the venue for my training.  I hate being late for things, grrr. Anyway, this last module was the most practical one to date. No more introductions, no more generalizations or broad strategic views. This was it – a very clear view of what our role would entail as well as an in-depth view at the concept of ‘hosting’. This I found particularly interesting, the whole hosting thing. It is basically a term that means that as gamesmakers, we are the hosts for the games and as such, we have some guidelines to follow to ensure that we are being good hosts. There even is a c

Gamesmaker orientation - fantastically motivating

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Two weeks after Module 1 of my role-specific training I attended Gamesmaker Orientation in Wembley Arena. I knew this one would be different because every gamesmaker, regardless of role, has to attend one of these sessions. I anticipated there would be a lot of people there, as it was being held in Wembley Arena and as before, I looked forward to the day but with a little trepidation as the last event had left me a bit unsure and concerned. I had to be at Wembley Arena quite early on a Sunday morning, which meant up very early in order to get on the train to get down there. However, overnight on the Saturday we got a large amount of snow so I worried about trains running at all. Adding to this I overslept on the Sunday morning which meant I basically got up, got dressed quicker than ever and left my house with barely a goodbye. Luckily for me the roads were basically clear (thank you gritters!) and I made it to the train station with a minute to spare. Sadly my good luck r

First Gamesmaker event - elation and doubt

Back in October I was full of excitement at having beenchosen as a Gamesmaker for the Paralympic Games, in the role of NPC assistant. I promised then that I would blog as much as I could and I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that nothing much has happened since.  Couldn’t be more wrong. The year 2012 came and before I knew it I was having my first Role-specific training session in wonderful Hackney. This was my first event as a full-fledged Gamesmaker and I wasn’t sure what I was expecting so off I went with an open mind and an endless curiosity to London on a cold January afternoon. I won’t bore you with the details of getting lost on the way there (ANNOYING) but eventually I made it and even though I was late all the organisers there made me feel so welcome while they were checking me in. I was directed to a room where there must have been about a thousand other people, all NOC/NPC assistants like me!  The day itself was interesting as it included a presentation on

My hair is my strength

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I spend a lot of time thinking about my hair, taking care of my hair, styling my hair and generally doing hair-related things. I really just love my hair. It makes me seem a bit shallow. That could be a fair-enough statement - with all that is going on with the world, why spend so much time fussing about my hair? After all, it wasn't that long ago that my hair was nothing more than a source of frustration because I didn't know what to do with it. In case you don't know what I look like, I have long, thick, brown, curly hair. Well, I say curly but in reality it is wavy and it takes a bit of effort to make it curl. And that was my biggest frustration: because I have "in-between hair" I could be either straight or curly and for many years I chose straight. You can hardly blame me: it was the 90s and everyone wanted Rachel hair. I had just emerged from the 80s after numerous perms and quite frankly, I was ready to embrace my inner Rachel. So out came the strai